Message from the Chair

Russell S. Lynch

Our Section has planned some interesting activities for

the Congress in Helsinki, Finland this year. If you can-

not attend the Congress, be sure to read the papers for

our session with the Newspaper Section.

As an example of collaboration, I want to share an ex-

perience from my work assignment with the U.S. 1940

Census. On 2 April 2012, the National Archives in

Washington, D.C. released digital images of the popu-

lation schedules. I and other staff at FamilySearch

helped publish the images and setup indexing projects

for 48 states, the District of Columbia, and seven terri-

tories. With over 132 million individuals enumerated

on the census, this is the largest indexing project in

which I have taken part. What a fabulous resource for

local history and family research between World War I

and World War II! Thousands of individuals have par-

ticipated in a community project involving commercial

websites, not-for-profit organizations, universities, and

government agencies.

The 1940 U.S. census project is only one example of

group projects throughout the world. The momentum

from government archives, libraries, and museums con-

tinues to build. This can be a great force for good. The-

se groups create a strong synergy when collaborating

on digitization and databases. I look forward to using

more collections in the future.

Due to my appointment to fill the vacancy as Chair of

Division II, our Section will be reorganizing the Execu-

tive Officers prior to or at the Congress. IFLA’s Profes-

sional Committee recommended having a Co-Chair for

our Section. I want to continue serving as an officer but

will not always be available in Standing Committee

meetings.

2

IFLA World Library and Information Congress Excitement is mounting in anticipation of the 78th IFLA

General Conference and Assembly to be held in Helsinki,

Finland, on 11 –17 August 2012. The conference will

take place in the beautiful Helsinki Exhibition and Con-

vention Centre.

The Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre, the larg-

est in Finland, is composed of 130,000 square meters of

conference space. The Centre includes seven exhibition

halls and 40 conference rooms, enough to handle large

groups and dynamic conference activities.

GENLOC members are encouraged to attend and benefit

from the rich array of professional and cultural experienc-

es that the IFLA Conference provides. The conference

presentations and standing committee meetings also offer

opportunities for networking with like-minded profes-

sionals from all over the world. The IFLA Nightspot rep-

resents a unique opportunity for networking. The

”nightspot” is an afterhours venue where conference at-

tendees can meet and mingle. It houses a pub, café, and

an event hall with a stage. In Helsinki, the “nightspot”

location will be at the Vanha Ylioppilastalo. It is an his-

torical building built and owned by the student union of

Helsinki University, but managed by a separate entity. It

is well known in Finland, and it is a very popular meeting

place and event venue.

During the week of the IFLA WLIC 2012, Vanha will be

open to the general public, but Congress attendees will be

especially welcomed there. The venue will be open each

day of the congress except for Monday, 13 August, when

the venue will host a private event. The Vanha will host

various events that might be arranged by the National

Committee. Further information can be obtained at the

Information Desk in the registration area.

GENLOC Presentation

GENLOC is cooperating with the Newspapers Section at

the IFLA Conference in Helsinki during August 2012 in

a three-hour presentation of topics relating to the theme:

Users and portals: digital newspapers, usability, and

genealogy. The joint IFLA Newspapers/GENLOC Con-

ference programme will be held on Tuesday, 14 August

2012, from 09:30 to 12:45.

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Ten papers have been chosen for this session by repre-

sentatives from the Standing Committees of the Newspa-

pers Section and GENLOC. The presentation should

prove to be a very interesting one.

The chosen abstracts are:

Eliane Blumer, Switzerland: Usability, An evaluation

of a digital library service using eye tracking and

qualitative usability testing - case study "e-rara.ch"

Ulrich Hagenah, Germany: Regional studies, regional

portals and newspaper content in Germany

Maja Krtalic, Croatia: Newspapers as a source of sci-

entific information in social sciences and humanities:

a case study of the Faculty of Philosophy, University

of Osijek

Randy Olsen & John Herbert, USA: Historic papers:

still delivering the news

Inci Onal, Turkey: Here and everywhere: digital

newspapers for historical research

Sonia Pacheco & Judy Farrar, USA: The Portuguese-

American Digital Newspaper Collection at UMass,

Dartmouth

Sofija Zadravec, Renata Petrusic & Jasenka Zajec,

Croatia: Cooperative portal of 19th century Croatian

historic newspapers and journals

Susan Reilly & Friedel Grant, Germany: Building on

partnership: European libraries

Ronghui Su, China: The library construction of digi-

tal resources for local literature

Dijana Sabolovic-Krajina, Croatia: from digitisation

of local newspapers to the portal of hometown cultur-

al heritage - a step by step digitisation strategy avail-

able to small communities

GENLOC Standing Committee Meetings

The GENLOC Standing Committee meetings in Helsinki

are scheduled as follows:

SC I Saturday, 11 August, 09:45 to 12:15, Room 215

SC II Thursday, 16 August, 11:30 to 13:00, Room 207

It will be important for all available GENLOC members

to attend both standing committee meetings to conduct

necessary section business.

4

Kudos

GENLOC has reason to celebrate the fine accomplish-

ments of our members. Kudos go first to Russ Lynch,

our Section Chair, for his recent appointment as Chair of

Division II and as a member of the Governing Board.

This appointment is a compliment to Russ and his willing

service and leadership, but it is also a sign of the profes-

sionalism of our section members. Congratulations,

Russ, on your appointment, and your GENLOC col-

leagues wish you the best in your new endeavors.

Kudos are also due to another of our members, Frank

Kirkwood. Frank received the Conference Award for the

best Session Coordinator at the Crimea 2012 19th Interna-

tional Conference in Sudak, Crimea in June (there will be

more on this conference later in the newsletter). The

award reflects Frank’s tireless work to promote quality

international programs. We congratulate you, Frank, on

your award, and we applaud your efforts.

13th Australasian Congress on Genealogy & Heraldry,

Adelaide, 28 to 31 March 2012

From 28 to 31 March I joined almost four hundred keen

genealogists and staff working in the field at the 13th

Australasian Congress on Genealogy & Heraldry hosted

by the South Australian Genealogy & Heraldry Society

and held at the Adelaide Convention Centre in South

Australia. Congress theme was 'Your ancestors in their

social context'. Attendees came from all over Australia

and New Zealand as well as a number of international

representatives. More than thirty librarians and archivists

were present so the Congress also presented a great op-

portunity to network and discuss common issues. With

eight plenary and 61 general sessions over the four days

there was much to choose from covering a vast range of

family history related topics.

Some highlights

Day 1 began with an enthralling presentation by Ameri-

can speaker Colleen Fitzpatrick, author of the well-

known publication Forensic Genealogy. Perfectly timed

with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic

approaching, Colleen outlined the long process of identi-

fying the unknown child whose body was salvaged from

the ship in late April 1912. The child was a boy about 2

years of age, probably a third class passenger. Using a

mixture of DNA and traditional genealogy techniques,

they were able to finally solve the mystery after some 90

years. The child's name was confirmed as Sidney Leslie

Goodwin. A major clue proved to be the small pair of

shoes worn on the voyage by Sidney and preserved at the

Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Canada.

Day 2 began with an excellent overview by Jenny Hig-

gins, Family History Reference Librarian at the National

Library of Australia, on “Using the resources of

the National Library and Trove to understand your ances-

tors in their social context”. Jenny emphasised the im-

portance of researching the social context of our families,

and then went on to show how the wonderful National

Library collections can assist with this research.

On Thursday afternoon, 29 March, academic historian

and author, Dr. Noeline Kyle, outlined ways of finding

Australian women in the records and writing more crea-

tively about them, especially convict, immigrant and In-

digenous women. She summarised at the end of her pa-

per:

5

"“ ...it is important to try and as family historians we are

in a position to research, record, and write about our

women ancestors who were brave enough to live the

most extraordinary lives..."

The last day saw a focus on another major collection,

The National Archives UK, given by Roger Kershaw,

their Head of Military, Maritime, Transport and Family

records. In April 2011 the National Archives launched

the Discovery service, which enables you to filter search

results by subject, date, and series origin, as well as in-

troducing map-based searching. The popular Documen-

tsOnline has been integrated.

In summary, the Congress was well organized, the South

Australian Society members were excellent hosts, and,

given the number of papers, hopefully there was some-

thing to interest everyone. The 590 page Congress pro-

ceedings (available for sale from the South Australian

Genealogy & Heraldry Society http://

www.genealogysa.org.au provides a detailed record of

almost all papers.

I look forward to the next tri-annual Congress which is

going to be held in Canberra, Australian Capital Territo-

ry, from 26 to 30 March 2015 and will be organized by

the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra.

I'll give the last words to Jenny Higgins from the Na-

tional Library of Australia, who perhaps best captures the

theme of this year's Congress:

"... Social and historical context provides the material

from which the family historian can construct a mean-

ingful written family history..."

Anne Burrows Genealogy Librarian State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street Melbourne, Victoria 3122

Email: aburrows@slv.vic.gov.au

Crimea 2012: 19th International Conference

Sudak, Crimea

4-8 June 2012

This IFLA-supported International Conference has been

held in the Crimea since 1994. The Organising Commit-

tee includes many eminent library personalities from the

Russian speaking nations, including, as Chair of the

Committee, Yakov Shrayberg, Director General of the

Russian National Public Library for Science and Tech-

nology.

On this occasion one of the Deputy Chairs of the Crimea

organising Committee was Francis Kirkwood, member

of the IFLA GENLOC Standing Committee – appropri-

ately enough, since the Conference programme was to

include a presentation on the work of GENLOC.

The conference was held in Sudak, a historic town on the

Black Sea, 65 miles to the east of Simferopol, the Crime-

an capital and the nearest airport. Sudak was celebrating

its 1800th anniversary. It had been an important port on

the Silk Road in the 12th/13th centuries, and boasted an

impressive 14th /15th century Genoese fortress overlook-

ing the coastline, submitted to UNESCO as a possible

World Heritage Site. A census of 1805 claimed that the

population of Sudak had been tremendously reduced, but

the present-day influx of tourists enjoying the fine

weather and the diversions of the beaches gave a holiday

atmosphere.

The Conference Centre itself also traded as a Health and

Tourism Centre, allowing the delegates to take part in a

competitive sports programme that included swimming,

tennis, table tennis, chess and billiards alongside the

Conference Sessions. For those in our accommodation

block, meals were served in the splendid Consul Restau-

rant whose walls were covered with scenes from Ukrain-

ian History.

Over a thousand delegates and exhibitors attended the

conference from around twenty countries. There was a

wide variety of meetings and discussions – the printed

programme itself ran to over 200 pages – but I was im-

mediately involved with the IFLA Forum at the ‘Crimea

Conference’ – the IFLA Bazaar: interesting new activi-

6

ties of IFLA Professional Groups. This session suffered

from being a late afternoon and evening event allowing

many delegates to opt out, despite the opportunity of ex-

cellent simultaneous translation. However my presenta-

tion on the work of GENLOC examined and publicised

the valuable work of our Section over the years.

GENLOC does have an introductory leaflet in Russian

about its activities. This may have been a revelation. One

member of the audience stood up to ask why IFLA had

no section dealing with Children’s Libraries, so more

publicity about the IFLA sections is crucial.

Ingrid Parent, President of IFLA, was unable to attend

the conference due to an unexpected family illness, but

Denise Nicholson of the IFLA Committee on Copyright

did great work substituting for the President, as well as

presenting her own papers within the programme of the

IFLA Committee on Copyright and Other Legal Matters

(CLM). Denise has also reported to IFLA HQ that it

would have been constructive to have had more IFLA-

participation in the Opening and Closing ceremonies and

in all the competing sessions, especially those on Copy-

right and the IFLA Bazaar, to demonstrate that IFLA is

indeed the overall and supportive International Federa-

tion of Library Associations.

My second session was during the Silk Road 2012, a spe-

cial Subject Seminar and Round Table Conference of the

Standing Committee of GENLOC. This programme had

been organised by Frank Kirkwood, of the GENLOC

Standing Committee and one of the Deputy Chairs of the

Crimea Conference, to honour the 1800th anniversary of

Sudak. I gave an address and PowerPoint on The history

and culture of the Silk Road as seen through Modern

British scholarship and exhibitions, opening up the

amazing International Dunhuang Project website over-

seen by Dr. Susan Whitfield of the UK British Library.

Other papers covered the extensive history of the Byzan-

tine, Russian, Tatar, Genoese, Turkish and Ukrainian

lands; Sudak in movie-making; the Italian medieval

presence in Sudak justifying the nomination of the Sudak

fortress for UNESCO World Heritage status; and an in-

depth talk on the history of the wines of the Crimea.

At the final Ceremony, Frank Kirkwood received the

Conference Award for the best Session Co-ordinator of

the 19th International Conference.

As at the annual IFLA Conferences, there were planned

excursions for the delegates. I was able to go on a ten

hour coach and walking tour along the coast to the deep-

est and noisiest waterfall in the Crimea, the Dzhur-

Dzhur Waterfall, the Church Lighthouse and the Muse-

um of Fatal Accidents on Waters. Denise and I made use

of the excellent Conference translators on a very snaking

coach trip through vineyards to the peaceful Nikitsky

Botanical Gardens; to the Vorontsov Palace, at Alupka,

where Winston Churchill had stayed while meeting with

Roosevelt and Stalin at the 1945 Yalta Conference; and

to Yalta itself. On another day we walked along the

shoreline and climbed up to the Sudak Fortress overlook-

ing the Black Sea.

Attending the Crimean Conference was an amazing ex-

perience for me and was one that I greatly enjoyed with

the help of the organisers and the synchronized transla-

tion service. I was honoured to be part of the IFLA Ba-

7

zaar demonstrating the efforts that GENLOC has made in

the last few years to enhance Genealogy and Local History

practice within IFLA. I must also thank all those, within

GENLOC and in the Crimea, who encouraged me to to

attend, including Alan Hopkinson of Middlesex Universi-

ty, Ksenia Volkova of the Russian National Public Library

for Science and Technology, the team of translators, and

the taxi-driver who picked three of us up at 3.30 am for

the two-hour journey to Simferopol airport in time to catch

our early morning flights back to London.

Elizabeth Melrose

Secretary: IFLA GENLOC

National Library of Scotland Blog

The National Library of Scotland (NLS) has launched a

family and local history blog http://blogs.nls.uk/

familyhistory/ Written by NLS staff in the Reader Ser-

vices’ department, the blog will mainly highlight Scottish

family and local history resources available in the Library

and also digitally. It will also occasionally feature external

resources which staff have come across in the course of

answering enquiries in these areas and which they have

found useful.

Louise McCarron

Head of Reference Services

National Library of Scotland

Newspapers Section Preconference

The Newspapers Section is sponsoring an IFLA 2012 pre-

conference entitled "The Electronic Re-evolution - News

Media in the Digital Age,” that will be held in Mikkeli,

Finland, August 7-9, 2012.

The Digital Age has turned the world of News Media up-

side down. Attend the pre-conference to hear all about the

latest developments in the field and how the leading ex-

perts in the field have tackled the new challenges caused

by the Electronic Re-evolution!

The pre-conference will deal with the impact of the elec-

tronic re-evolution in the newspaper field at large includ-

8

ing e-delivery, crowd-sourcing, digital environment,

and copyright issues. The pre-conference is being co-

sponsored by other IFLA sections.

Helsinki City

Don’t miss the opportunity to enjoy the delights of the

City of Helsinki while attending the IFLA Confer-

ence. Helsinki, originally founded by King Gustavus

Vasa of Sweden, possesses a fascinating history. The

city is now a bustling metropolis of more than half a

million people filled with cultural and sightseeing op-

portunities. The local temperature should be pleasant

in August (about 60 degrees F.) for activities outside

of the convention centre.

The New York Times selected Helsinki as the second

most interesting destination in the world. The Interna-

tional Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid)

also designated Helsinki as the World Design Capital

for the year 2012. Innovative cuisine may be found in

many areas of the city. Helsinki serves as a wonderful

venue for the 78th IFLA General Conference and As-

sembly.

Terry Dahlin

Newsletter Editor